Nathaniel's Revelation
by Fiona Fargazer
Summary: I had a very old version of this one-shot that I put up in 2009, but I just got rid of the old one and now have the updated version. It's based on the deleted scene from the movie by the same name and goes into his backstory a little bit.


JMJ

NATHANIEL'S REVELATION

" _Hello worthless! Miss me?"_

At first Nathaniel found that his mind had staggered, and he froze, blank and confused, but he had heard her clearly enough. The words seemed to echo with a sickening reverberation as he stared back at the queen's unpleasant sneer, which in this sharp, hyper-detailed, and dark world her sneer took on a depth that was utterly frightful, for until this very second he had not seen her outside of an Andalasian atmosphere.

 _Worthless?_ His mind finally gathered back wits enough to form words without speech, but he still sat as frozen and blank as a rather pathetic gargoyle save for his wide blinking stare.

Only just moments before, after having witnessed several people using these little black boxes called phones, a voice from inside the vehicle had prompted him to press the numbers on the phone available to him in order to get professional relationship assistance, but it had not been quite as helpful as he had hoped it would be. The voice now inside the phone could still be heard inquiring about where Nathaniel had gone.

"Hello?" asked the female voice. "Hello? Mr. N?"

 _Yes, worthless..._ thought Nathaniel sluggishly _. Completely and utterly so._

Narissa smiled and serpentine eyes shifted lazily to the phone which to promptly plucked from Nathaniel's hand with no effort, for Nathaniel had zero strength in any of his limbs even had he the will to keep it.

The relief he felt when her eyes had shifted, made Nathaniel confused all over again, but he closed his eyes and as if to refresh himself and watched as Narissa spoke in a sarcastic tone. "Mr. N is a little busy right now. You'll have to finish your little chat later, 'kay?"

Putting the phone down, she placed once again her full attention upon Nathaniel.

"Come on, don't just sit there," she told him, in an exceptionally good mood considering he had caused her to come to this horrible world by being such a miserable and, yes, worthless fool in trying to accomplish her orders despite what he thought to be the extremity of them.

Almost playfully, she had the grace to open the door for him instead of making him open it himself, but somehow it did not make him feel better about it. It made him feel only all the more worthless. It felt somehow as if she was telling him that he was too worthless even to open a door.

Swallowing hard on his dry throat, he stepped out onto the walkway he felt just a bit as though he had been enchanted into jam, as if he would collapse beneath that mighty presence of his beloved Queen Narissa into a big pile of fruity slop. Yet though his legs were shaking he found them stronger than he had supposed as followed after Narissa like a bad dog with its tail between its legs.

He stumbled clumsily along before stopping before a magnificent fountain, sharp and almost eerie looking in the glow of the queer lights and flashing mirrors to other places all around them. It looked queer even before Narissa stirred up the water with her magic to find out the location of Giselle, the girl that they so desperately wanted to get rid of.

His eyes widened as he stared, for though he had seen her perform magic many times over, for the first time he felt the dark aura emanating from Narissa's person as she caught sight of the girl looking behind her shoulder as though she felt that dark aura herself somehow of Narissa watching her in her magic circle.

He had never noticed before. It may have been a strange thought, but Nathaniel had already considered that in this world the more one observed the more there was to be observed, but he did not like the thought combined with watching her. Her gleeful, almost maniacal hatred oozed with such apparent force in her flashing eyes gleaming, and he felt suddenly chilled, almost naked.

A desire to go home went through him, home where things were simpler and made so much more sense. If only the well had never been. If only he had encouraged Prince Edward to hunt in a different part of the forest that day he heard the voice of Giselle singing for her partner like a lovely spring bird. He was only glad now that Narissa was not looking at him as he stood in the dark street feeling so vulnerable and lost, but he should have seen this coming he at last decided. He knew that he should have been expecting this.

Maybe it was the whole thing with the murdering of an innocent girl. Maybe it was simply this strange new world they had traveled to, but Nathaniel had this uneasy feeling growing in the back of his mind ever since he had gotten over the initial shock at the extreme change in worlds from his own in Andalasia to the one known as "New York City". It had started out slowly, just as a trickling chill like a tiny insect crawling up his back and then finally finding its way beneath his shirt collar, or maybe it was a chipmunk. Certainly that little creature had been crawling all over him all day long.

But his annoyance at the recollection of Giselle's pet broke up as he recalled the words of the dark queen: "I'm going to make absolutely certain of it…" He was sure it had started with that, his queer feeling. Nothing too big, something he would have brushed aside easily if he had been at home. It was not the first time he done something that was against his conscience in the service of the queen. Loyalty had always come first above all. Lying, sneaking, spying, he had done all that for her already. Things almost unheard of in Andalasia. Things he certainly would not have considered doing without being taught by Narissa.

But at the time in that restaurant kitchen his chill was minor. Quickly forgotten it was forgotten. After all it was the first time in Nathaniel's life that the queen had promised that they could be together and live Happily Ever After, desire that perhaps the queen had always known he had.

Well. Of course she knew! It was the desire of every Andalasian, and even if it was not his heart had always been on his sleeve as most people of Andalasia also. Come to think of it, the only one who ever tried to keep feelings to herself was Narrissa herself. A foreign mystery and a foreign beauty. From the day she had set foot in the castle he had fallen under her spell, and thinking back he knew that he always had doubted he could ever live Happily Ever After with Narissa though. It did not matter how much his heart desired it. No doubt that was why he had been so adamant to keep in her good graces. To execute her every whim to the best of his ability. Because maybe if he proved his loyalty. Proved his love, in fact. She would love him back?

He had been barely out of his adolescence then, nothing more than a lad. She had not yet spoken to him, unconscious as she was, when the other servants had pulled her in out of the storm that fateful night.

Nathaniel could recall the moment now to his memory as if it were happening before his very eyes.

He could see right now in front of him that slightly knowing smile that had trickled across her lips as she lay there on the sofa with him watching her in the gloom. The other servants were all busily taking care of her. They did not notice, but he felt at that time that that smile had been meant for him. Surely that moment was the beginning of true love as Andalasia knew it. Happily Ever After.

A strong urge had come over him to kiss her. He had wanted to take her away and marry her right then and he would have if he had been able to. Though, at the time and at that stage in his life he would not have allowed such outrageous thoughts to linger in his head for long. He was a servant first and above all. This was a guest of the king.

Besides all that changed a day later when the sad and lonely king had decided he wanted to marry her himself, and Nathaniel as a footman's son had had no say in such things.

Was it sick to say that a part of him had been almost happy when the king had died? He had never thought it sick before, but now, part of him could not help it.

It was not that Nathaniel had not mourned the death of King Edmond any less than the rest of the kingdom, but that did not change that selfish tinge just barely above consciousness in his mind, that at last Narissa might be his. The thought of the crown that would now go with such a marriage had not ever crossed his mind. He had thought only that as a favorite servant of Narissa's he just might have a chance for Happily Ever After.

Nor had he believed at the time that Narissa had had anything to do with the King Edmond's death as some of the servants had been rumoring. He had just gotten ill. He had already been so ill with grief from the loss of Prince Edward's mother. His true love had been Queen Edwina. He had never loved Narissa as Nathaniel had, but he was slowly realizing at the very moment that if Narissa had given the order to kill Giselle, perhaps she might very well have at least quickened the poor king's passing at the very least.

"C'mon, you bumbling idiot," Narissa grumbled, waking him back to the present in an instant, and he squirmed.

He felt slightly ill as her reptilian eyes penetrated his body. Her anger for his failure to kill the girl earlier pierced him through. He felt it more than saw it, and he was not sure if it was because of what he was now realizing about her or if it was simply the way this world affected her features, making them sharper, darker, more intense. Or was it just the way she more openly insulted him?

But the glare did not linger and he said almost pleasantly, "We have a party to crash."

She stepped roughly and closely passed him so that the edges of her clothing whipped against him.

There was little else to do but obey her command. It was not as if Nathaniel had much of a choice in the matter. Rather reluctantly he followed her, his head low as he pulled the queer turban, which had been part of his last disguise, further onto his head, but it did little to ease his tension.

Respectfully, he opened the car door for the queen to enter, but she would not be appeased as she shoved him aside almost causing him to lose his balance. Quickly he grabbed onto the car door just as she had seated herself inside.

"Get in, quit wasting time, Nathaniel," she barked impatiently.

"A—Are you certain you know how to drive it, my lady?" asked Nathaniel, his voice cracked, but he had a hope that perhaps she could let him drive. He cleared his throat and swallowed hard.

Narissa rolled her eyes. "I'm not going to drive it, I'm sending it there. Now get in or I'll leave you behind!"

Nathaniel nodded readily and running around to the other side of the car he climbed in through the door to the driver's seat just as Narissa was using her magic on the machine and ordering it to take them to the party where Giselle would be.

Nathaniel gazed gloomily with a heavy childish sigh out the window, and the car started off down the road.

 _Eventually she would stop being angry, right?_ He thought.

The screaming and ranting of the chipmunk in its little hamster ball, which Nathaniel had found for it at that odd little animal store, aroused his attention briefly, but he ignored it. He had forgotten it was there.

It was because of that galling little rodent that he was in this mess! It was his fault that none of Nathaniel's attempts at pleasing the queen had worked. It was the chipmunk's fault Prince Edward had chased after the girl in the first place, and it was the chipmunk's fault that Nathaniel had to waste most of his precious time keeping it from bringing the prince and the girl back together. It had taken more wits that Nathaniel knew he had to keep it from doing it too. Thankfully in Nathaniel's favor the prince had been too naive to think anything badly of his step mother's most trusted servant who had helped him hunt trolls since he was little older than twelve so all attempts had been futile for the creature in the respect of its trying to expose him, but still!

Well it was certainly the chipmunk's fault that the second apple wasn't slipped down the girl's throat. The whole mess would be over by now if it had not been for that miserable thing, and how it had survived that blazing furnace, Nathaniel would never figure out. Maybe the whole world was against him!

 _Well, no_ , he thought, _that's getting a little too far, isn't it?_

No one else in this world suspected him as far as he could tell. It was only the foreign clothes which drew their attention at all, surely, and no had ever gotten in his way except the chipmunk. One thing that he did like about this world was that most people seemed to be far less inquisitive about how people were doing and if they needed any help. Most of the time they did not even look up to say hello. So it was not the world. It was the chipmunk.

Nathaniel paused, looking up for a moment to see the creature's beady little eyes aimed in a death-glare directly at him, and shaking its tiny fist in wrath. At this Nathaniel only muttered something unintelligible even to himself after giving the creature a death glare of his own, and then returned to the window.

If it hadn't been for that filthy little thing…

Nathaniel sighed again bleakly as he lost the urge to go on with such thoughts, and he slumped further down in his seat leaning his head on his arm as it rested on the unused steering wheel.

"Don't be so upset," said Narissa suddenly. "It's not a total loss, you being an idiot. Now I'll be here to witness my own triumph; though, I suppose there will have to be a little, um…" her lips pursed for a second, "discipline for you later, but it's nothing to get all gloomy about. Soon enough we'll have what we always wanted — _my_ happily ever after."

At the last phrase, Nathaniel snapped his head up sharply as if she had suddenly jabbed him in the side with a stick.

#

 _Happily Ever After…_

 _It was dark as it always was in the throne room since Edward's father had passed away. Narissa had never taken the curtains of mourning off the windows. In the gloom, the lofty ceilings seemed to reach on forever into an eternal abyss of inky blue, purple and blackness. Long sinister shadows crept across the floor and along the walls, making one feel as though he were being watched and about to get pounced upon from behind by some goblin._

 _Nathaniel never would have liked going in there had it not been the reward of seeing Queen Narissa waiting at the end of it, and as long as he did not have to look at the rest of the room he felt better about it._

 _However this particular time Nathaniel was not thinking about gloom or the pleasing sight of his mistress. He was exasperated._

" _But, my lady!" he protested piteously to her back, for she had positioned herself just then in the window._

 _She pulled one of those heavy curtains aside to look out in her usual way over the gardens she had designed. There had been nothing wrong with the gardens before, but she had insisted upon redesigning it to her own special elegant style. "Like coiling snakes when seen from above," some said. Not Nathaniel, of course, but some of the other servants and knights who had always found Queen Narissa a little queer. Her fixation with one of the fountains especially raised a brow from others now and then out of her presence._

 _Blinking in the sudden stream of light, Nathaniel did not notice how Narissa did not even flinch._

" _I know nothing about children!" he finished throwing his hands out in front of him before bounding to her side as close as he dared._

" _He's too old for his nurse to keep him in line," Narissa replied still looking out over the gardens as though following the slithering of the paths between those trails of greenery cut like steam rising from tea cups. "And besides, you're the only one I trust with this job."_

 _Nathaniel had to smile at that, even in his uncomfortable state. He straightened himself proudly and nodded._

" _Oh, well, thank you, your majesty," he said with a gracious bow, "but … I'm afraid I still don't quite understand. What are you afraid of Prince Edward doing? He's never been much trouble and has ever been a good little boy. The pride of the kingdom in fact." His smile broadened and he stifled a silly little chuckle._

 _Narissa sighed impatiently._

" _Oh, Nathaniel, Nathaniel," she said. "It's not that I don't trust him. It's just, well, someone needs to keep him from getting himself in trouble with a girl."_

 _Nathaniel could not help the wince in his confusion. "Getting in trouble with a girl" was not a phrase many Andalasians would understand._

" _I've explained this to you already," said the queen. "If I'm to keep my throne, Edward is to remain unmarried."_

" _But, my lady, it's only natural to happen sooner or later, especially in Andalasia," Nathaniel humbly replied._

" _Not if I can help it," said Narissa._

 _Here Nathaniel paused, unsure of how to take that last statement._

" _My lady?" he asked softly twiddling his fingers._

 _He glanced out the window after her gaze briefly, but as that did not give him the answer to her thoughts nor the reason for her sudden smile he simply returned his gaze to her._

 _Then she let the curtain fall._

 _They were in darkness again. He watched the graceful swoop of her gown just visible to eyes that had just gotten used to the light as she came to the throne. Here she seated herself as nobly as a person who had been born into it, which made the queen (a person who had once been a peasant as far as anyone knew) all the more admirable._

" _I've told you many times that besides being a loyal servant so that I've elevated your status to major domo you are a very good friend to me," said Narissa._

" _Yes, my lady, always!" Nathaniel agreed bounding in front of the throne eagerly now that he had blinked his eyes back to being used to the dark._

" _Yes," said Narissa with a snide tone lost upon her servant. "So between us as friends, the Ever Afterings of Andalasia are not shared equally, are they?"_

 _Nathaniel blinked. "Andalasia_ is _Happily Ever After." He paused. "Isn't it?"_

" _Is it? For everyone? For King Edmond who lost his wife? For me who lost my husband who never truly loved me as he had Queen Edwina? For you?"_

" _Uh …" Nathaniel twiddled his fingers._

" _Some people in Andalasia have Happily Ever Afters delivered to them with a silver spoon from the moment they enter the word," Narissa said. "The beautiful people, Nathaniel. The perfect ones. The princes and princesses, the damsels and the heroes, but what of the rest? The sidekicks? The bumbling servants? The blacksmith? The rival? Only there to serve_ them _? Hmm? Who are already happy anyway. To watch them from the sidelines make merry and marry while the ugly, the awkward, and the unimportant never get what they want."_

"You're _beautiful, my good queen," Nathaniel said earnestly with an exaggerated grin and trying to ignore an unexplainable pain that had suddenly grown in his heart at Narissa's words. Although in his Andalasian innocence such thoughts had never crossed his mind before, it was as though she had spoken a secret resentment that he never knew he had. "Very much so!" he added quickly and he added a nervous laugh._

" _Nevertheless, people like me …" She paused and looked at Nathaniel with a strange sort of smile like the sweetness of a tart with just too much sugar, but Nathaniel ate it up and did not care about the stomach ache it caused him, "and people like_ you _… while the perfect ones have Happily Ever Afters fall into their laps, we must strive to make our_ own _Happily Ever Afters . . ."_

 _#_

"Our own Happily Ever Afters . . ." Nathaniel muttered rather mistily. He looked up at Queen Narissa as she addressed him a second time, his eyes blinking slowly as one not quite awakened from a deep slumber.

"Nathaniel, are you listening to me?" Narissa demanded.

"Yes, my lady," Nathaniel assured her. "Soon you'll never have to worry about Prince Edward again."

"That's right!" she exclaimed as the car came to an abrupt halt, "and I want you to wait here," she said as if she were speaking to some donkey or a very slow dog. "I don't want you to mess anything else up. I'll be back soon!"

"Yes, my lady," replied Nathaniel in the same exact tone as before. After a pause he asked, "Would you like me to get the door?"

An irritated flicker in the queen's eye was the only response Nathaniel received from his mistress. She yanked roughly on the handle of the door and without looking back she stepped out into the night air with a stiff and haughty look about her. There was hardly a pause as she slammed the door behind her and made her way casually across the street as if she were merely going to supper rather than going to kill an innocent girl and ruin the young prince's happiness — not to mention what other damage she may have in store for anyone that might get in her way, such as the other man that Giselle had been staying with all this time.

Nathaniel's eyes did not waver from Queen Narissa's form until she disappeared behind the glass doors into that grand building where somewhere inside a ball was being held. He let out a deflated sigh and slumped into his seat more miserably than before, and he was left to fester deep in his own thoughts.

However, he had not been sitting like that for long before he heard the chipmunk screaming again from where it had rolled onto the floor in its little ball. For a few minutes Nathaniel had actually forgotten all about it, and as he looked down at the furry little creature trying in vain to force the ball against the door on the passenger side, Nathaniel could only shake his head.

"Stupid, thing," he muttered to himself, adjusting the turban on his head again—why was it that he was wearing it now?

The chipmunk had heard this remark and turning around, crossed its arms over its chest and glared. The little squeaks that came forth from its mouth could be recognized as the words: _Huh! Stupid!? And what are you, you big great oaf?_ Or at least it was something along those lines—it was rather hard to tell unless one was listening very closely.

Nathaniel glowered at the chipmunk and snatched the ball in his hands so that he and the creature were at eye level and only inches away from one another. The chipmunk made it quite obvious that if there had not been a clear slippery wall between them that Nathaniel would no longer have been able to see through his "squinty, villainous" eyes.

"You just behave yourself!" Nathaniel scolded, shaking his finger sharply. "I've better things to worry about right now than your incessant screeching!"

The chipmunk rolled his eyes.

 _Oh, really?_

The creature spun around once or twice making some more unintelligible squeaks. Then he stood again on his hind legs, and began to hold himself in a haughty air. His features went tight and sharp and he began to smile slyly.

Nathaniel recognized the phrase that escaped the gerbil-like voice, _If there's ever going to be a happily ever after for us…_ The chipmunk swirled a finger around as though twirling it through long hair that did not exist on his head.

Then with another lightening-speed twirl around the hamster ball, the chipmunk began his imitation of Nathaniel, slumping over like some stupid ogre and sticking out his stomach as far as it would go, which was quickly recognized by the lackey and he grimaced. The chipmunk ogled goofily and stuck out his tongue as if he were about to drool and made a little " _Duh_ …" sound. Then returning to his normal state, the chipmunk crossed his arms over his chest and let out a sarcastic little, _Uh, huh._

Nathaniel lifted the ball above his head and made ready to smash it into the dash board, but just before he slammed the ball forward he paused. Releasing a deep and heavy sigh, he resumed his slumping-position in the chair, leaning his arms over the ball which sat in his lap, for a few moments in which neither he nor the chipmunk said anything. Then very slowly he sat up straight in his seat again.

"Happily Ever After . . ." he murmured in a very defeated tone of voice.

The chipmunk seated inside by this time seemed to have lost interest in Nathaniel and was simply looking longingly out the window towards the glass doors where Narissa had disappeared. There was another short pause before which Nathaniel clutched the ball in his hands again and slowly, almost dazedly, brought it back up towards his face.

"Oh," he sighed, not totally certain if he was speaking to himself or the chipmunk, but he was staring out the front window at some unknown object on the street corner. "I don't know, I—"

Here the chipmunk turned slightly, cocking his head in Nathaniel's direction, but Nathaniel continued on only half noticing him.

"I mean," said Nathaniel. "She talks about us having a future, but all she really seems to care about is this nasty apple business and I—"

The chipmunk began chirping away in a very speedy and unintelligible manner, but it was enough to break Nathaniel's thoughts for a realization to suddenly dawn upon him, but then he had very rarely until his time here been truly self conscious of himself.

"I'm helping her!"

The chipmunk could only agree, and he held out his paws as if to ask how Nathaniel could have just figured that out now.

"I mean what does that say about me?" Nathaniel demanded, staring into the hamster ball.

At this the chipmunk became very animated and scurrying about in his ball he began squeaking and ranting again in a very speedy hardly intelligible manner, but with knowing the chipmunk's agenda in wanting to have his friend rescued from death it was not hard to figure out the gist of what he trying to get though to Nathaniel as the little creature pointed towards him and then at the building with the glass doors.

Nathaniel looked out the window to the building just at hand. Beyond lay the ball in which Narissa would soon have Giselle dead. He looked at the bright green numbers inside the car in which held the time. It was not yet midnight.

"You're right!" Nathaniel exclaimed turning back to the chipmunk. "You're absolutely right!"

Quickly he placed the ball onto the passenger's seat and taking off his turban he placed that behind the ball. The chipmunk was still ranting, but Nathaniel paid little heed. Instead he thanked the chipmunk before grabbing his coat, and flinging open the car door he hurried across the street careful to not get hit by any other car which was zooming by.

The last thought that came into his mind before coming to the broad wooden doors of the ballroom inside were the words of Narissa, "We must strive to make our own Happily Ever Afters". However, the words held a totally different meaning in his mind than they did just moments ago.

He had known all along that killing the girl was wrong. He had known all along that he should not have gone along with Narissa's plan, but until that moment had not occurred to Nathaniel that he had a solemn duty to himself as a human being over his own actions. That he could consciously think about his actions both good and bad. That did not mean ruining the lives of others to reach one's Happily Ever After as Narissa thought. Whether or not he would ever have his own Happily Ever After in the Andalasian meaning of the phrase he could at least be happy with himself that he had done all he could to stop someone to destroy the lives of two very innocent people who could be happy, and that was more satisfying to his heart than any vile wedlock ever could have been. It would have done nothing but enslave him more had he ever gotten what he had truly desired before this point. There was something more important than satisfying selfish and even injurious desires: doing what one knew was right!

"… she fainted …" Narissa was just trying to settled the party about.

Anyone could see there was far more to it than a fainting spell when one looked upon that poor girl so deathly pale when she had just earlier that day been full of color and life. Nathaniel's eyes lingered on Giselle for only a moment. As he lifted them to Narissa he felt a sudden fear that drew him back a pace or two, and he bit his lip.

She was stalling. Trying to keep anyone from going too near until the clock began to strike, but he could see for the first time in his life a fear in Narissa. Her confidence was not what he had always thought it was. It was this alone that helped him gather up enough courage the last time she tried to convince everyone that the girl had merely fainted to approach her. Slowly, perhaps, but surely.

She was still unaware of his presence, and it was not until he opened his mouth that she did and with quite a start. And what he said, he spoke more seriously than he had ever said anything in his whole life. "No, she didn't."


End file.
